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Re: Birds? What birds?



On Fri, 12 Nov 1999, BILL HILTON JR wrote:
> 
> I'm just not sure whether to believe any of these reported sightings 
> in the Carolinas of Purple Finches, Pine Siskins, Red-breasted 
> Nuthatches, and the like.
> 
> Anyone else in the Piedmont--or elsewhere--notice a dearth of avian 
> activity at feeders or in your yards?

I've noticed no dearth of activity in my yard, but a definite bird 
shortage at my feeders. I think there is just too much other food out 
there as yet. For instance, the Pine Siskins I recently reported, and the 
American Goldfinches as well, are coming nowhere near my feeders. A 
couple of big Sweet Gum trees tower over my yard, they hang out high up 
in those trees picking at the SG balls and totally ignoring the thistle 
and sunflower down below. Similarly, the hedgerows around the yard and in 
the adjacent vacant wooded lot are hopping with White-throats and Juncos, 
but no amount of millet scattering will bring them into the open. 
Cardinals do come eat millet if I scatter it in my new brush pile, while 
a squad of Mourning Doves swings by periodically and cleans out the 
millet in the open parts of the yard. The suet feeder is getting visited 
by a Brown Creeper sporadically, but woodpeckers are coming by much less 
often than they did in the summer, maybe because they are less burdened 
with fledgelings to feed. I picked up a woodpecker feeder (cylinder of 
metal mesh) and woodpecker food (blend of peanuts, sunflower, other nuts, 
dried fruit) a couple of weeks ago, but as of yesterday only a Carolina 
Wren was hanging there chiseling. The only regular seed customers are 
chickadees and titmice and the two (but not the third) nuthatches, all 
coming to oil sunflower; they're spending some time on the Sweet Gum 
balls too...

Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Zoology

jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/